


Escape

by Josselin



Category: Captive Prince - S. U. Pacat
Genre: Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2051952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Damen escaped, he made it three days before Laurent caught him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After Damen escaped, he made it three days before Laurent caught him.

His first day had been spent in Arles, hiding much of the day through a hunt of the Prince's Guard, and then making his way out of town towards sundown, just before the closing of the gates, following behind a miller's wagon. He walked close enough to the wagon so as to appear one of the miller's apprentices as the gatekeeper gave the miller a cursory nod, and then further from the wagon so as not to attract undue attention from the miller himself.

The second day he headed north. He needed to go south ultimately, as his destination was Akielos and he had no desire to see Kempt, but his efforts to avoid the search parties the Prince’s Guard was sending out of Arles sent him in the opposite direction of his destination in an attempt to avoid detection. He found a blacksmith who was willing to remove the cuffs and collar and provide him with supplies in exchange for the gold that fell off his his neck, and once freed, he made camp in a grove of willow trees near the river. 

The third day he slept the morning in an empty barn, populated only by a fat tomcat who eyed Damen suspiciously. And the third afternoon he searched for an opportunity to find a horse, heading south in a semi-circle around Arles, aiming for Chastillon.

When Laurent finally caught up to Damen, Laurent had a significant advantage. Damen was alone. He was armed only with a short knife. He had been traveling without a warm meal for half a week. Laurent was surrounded by five of his own men and five of the Regent's. They had presumably eaten and slept well at Chastillon before heading out for a pleasant morning ride to encircle their missing prisoner. Damen was on foot and Laurent and his men were on horseback, armed with swords and wearing armor.

Damen prepared to fight anyway. He had been a slave for only a few weeks, but it had been long enough to determine that it was better to fight and die cleanly fighting than to return to the crooked politics of Arles. Veretians did not know how to treat their prizes; Veretians did not know how to treat each other. They smiled and embraced their enemies before they stabbed them in the back.

Damen thought that he knew that the Veretians were treacherous, and yet he was still surprised when, amidst his own fight to disarm another of Laurent's men, they were all attacked by Vaskian raiders.

The melee was chaotic.

Half of Laurent's men seemed focused on subduing Damen still, the half wearing the Regent's colors seemed confused about what they should be doing with their weapons and loitered. The Vaskians rode into the fight with a volley of arrows shot from horseback while riding at full tilt into their scramble. Their aim while moving so fast was not very precise, but it was an effective distraction.

Damen ducked to pick up a sword he had managed to disarm from one of the Prince's Guard only to see one of the men wearing the Regent's livery hit Laurent over the head with a mace.

Laurent crumpled and fell from his horse slowly. The man who hit him had his attention split between one of the Prince's Guard and the rearing of Laurent's horse.

It became clear to Damen that the melee, which had started with Laurent and his men against Damen, was now a fight in which the Prince's Guard was fighting both the Regent's men and the Vaskian raiders.

He wasn’t sure, even later, what motivated him to block the blow that would have separated Laurent’s head from his body. It wasn’t as though Laurent had shown him any particular kindness in his days in Arles, or that the prince seemed to possess any admirable traits in his character that merited the consideration. Perhaps it was sympathy, having been attacked in his own house by his own men, to defend Laurent from a blow from a man who was ostensibly at Laurent’s own command. Perhaps it was a natural instinct to defend a man who was laying unconscious on the ground from a death blow.

It was sheer good fortune that he managed to get Laurent away from the field. He grabbed the reins of one of the fallen men, hoisted Laurent into the saddle, and retreated from the last pair of fighting men and several fleeing raiders in a separate direction.

He was not sure, as he rode, that Laurent was not already dead, not being able to stop and check his head or his pulse. A man might die from such a blow to the head, or even from a bad fall off his horse. But when Damen finally found a small cave that seemed adequate to the task of sheltering two men and a horse, he settled Laurent on to the ground and found his yellow hair matted with blood, but his pulse still strong.

Damen was not a physician nor a battle surgeon. He knew the same basic first aid as any man in the Akielon army; his knowledge was completely inadequate to the type of wound that Laurent had.

He examined the cave to ensure that there were no dangerous animals nesting in the crevices, and then he left Laurent there and scouted the area more broadly, filling the horse’s water bags at a small spring.

Laurent remained unconscious for most of the rest of the day while Damen set a snare, watered the horse, and then attempted to clean Laurent’s wound, with very little success.

That night Laurent woke briefly, long enough for Damen to hold his head up and help him to drink some water and to eat a few bites of the rabbit Damen had caught from Damen’s fingers. Laurent seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes and could not keep them open for more than a few seconds at a time, even as he chewed and swallowed with his head propped in Damen’s hands.

Damen kept watch as Laurent slept fitfully and restlessly, and then Damen slept himself, lightly. He tried even as he rested to remain alert to any approach or to Laurent rousing yet again.

Laurent was still asleep in the morning. With his hair darkened with matted blood he did not resemble the same prince who had overseen Damen’s arrival in Vere, the cold figure who had featured in Damen’s mind as he had taken advantage of the opportunity to escape the palace and make his way slowly back to the Akielon border.

The air became hotter as midday approached. Damen had been watching the entrance to the cave, but when the sun rose high in the sky he retreated into the shadows and found Laurent motionless but awake. His eyes were open and tracking; he followed Damen from the bright area at the front of the cave and focused on him as Damen moved toward Laurent’s position near the rear.

“You’re awake,” said Damen, thinking that it had been wise to have patted Laurent down checking for weapons the night before. He had removed two knives from the prince’s person, and now that Laurent was awake it felt safer than wondering if Laurent had one of them in his hand where it was placed behind his leg.

“Who are you?” said Laurent, clearing his throat. “Where are we?” There was a pause. “Who am I?”


	2. Chapter 2

Laurent could tell that the man was lying.

He was lying to Laurent now, and he had been lying to Laurent for the past three days that Laurent had been contained in the cave, needing assistance even to walk the ten steps to the cave entrance to relieve himself. 

Despite the lies, the man was also the one who helped Laurent to the cave entrance when he needed an arm to steady him, and he was the one who went hunting and returned with small animals that he roasted by a fire. The man was feeding Laurent, passing Laurent hot pieces of meat dripping with fat from the fire. 

So Laurent had held his tongue about the lies.

He asked other questions, instead, if only to determine what lines of questioning he should carefully avoid. Some of the questions he asked he knew the answers to, so that he could determine the man’s reactions with more accuracy:

_Was the injury on his head improving?_ The man said yes, and Laurent’s dizziness upon rising seemed to have subsided from being like a small ship in a storm to being only a man who has not yet got his sea legs, so Laurent was inclined to believe this. He had reached a tentative hand up toward the matted mess of hair and dried blood, but it had been so sensitive to the touch that he had abandoned the attempt at feeling it and left the tending of his wound to his companion.

_What season was it?_ This was a trick; it was clearly summer. The man passed.

On the first day the man had evaded a question of where they were with an excuse about needing to patrol. On the second day Laurent became more oblique. _Were they in Kempt?_ Another trick, as Laurent’s brief glances outside the cave had seen no trees and Kempt was thickly wooded. But the man merely answered that they were not.

Laurent decided to side-step toward the man’s identity as well. If asking who the man was produced only evasions and vague excuses about needing to see to the horse, then Laurent could try other paths. 

“What is the name of the horse?”

The man seemed surprised by this question. 

“I don’t know,” the man said, running a hand through his hair. He had southern-Akielon features, dark hair twisted in curls, olive-tinged skin, a fate mark on his left cheek. 

“Is it contagious?” said Laurent, meaning the amnesia, and the man laughed, awkwardly, as though perhaps he and Laurent were not accustomed to laughing together.

“I lost my horse and acquired this horse in the melee,” the man said. “I don’t know what she is called.” The man had a faint accent when he spoke Veretian. He was a large man, a head taller than Laurent and broader through the shoulders and torso. His body revealed that he was not an indulgent man -- he had the type of musculature that came from hard work and his hands had the scarred and rough skin of a horseman and soldier. Yet he carried himself as nobility, even as he persisted in lying to Laurent.

“And did I acquire you in the melee as well?” said Laurent. “Is that why you will not answer what you or I are called?”

The man smiled wryly. “Something like that,” he said, and he did not even give an excuse for leaving the cave, and Laurent supposed he did not need to. Laurent was not able to follow him in any case.

On the third day, as the man was roasting the rabbit he had snared over the fire, Laurent pressed the man to a reluctant admission that Laurent called him Damen. Laurent noted that this was carefully worded so as to avoid any claims that Damen was his name or that it was what others called him. Laurent acknowledged this with a blink and opened a different line of questioning. 

“How did I come to this injury?”

Damen looked up from where the meat was spitting over the flames and met Laurent’s eyes as he answered -- he was not always willing to do that. “You were struck.”

“And so?”

“It was a mace,” said Damen. “It’s remarkable you are still living.”

“And who was wielding the mace?” said Laurent. If it were necessary to draw each piece of information from Damen at the pace of skinning a hare, then they would both die of old age before Laurent regained any substantial knowledge of himself. He directed Damen to the point. “Are there men who are still seeking to do me harm?”

Damen’s gaze had settled above Laurent’s right shoulder, and Laurent was preparing himself to disbelieve whatever claim was made next, and then Damen met Laurent’s eyes again.

“I am not sure,” he said. “The man who struck you was wearing the livery of the Regent of Vere, but I am not certain that he was not someone else in disguise.”

Laurent frowned, considering. That was more information than most of Damen’s responses included, and puzzling information as well. 

“There are likely men after both of us,” Damen continued. He paused for a moment, looking at Laurent’s injury. “Do you think that you could sit a horse?”

***

Their progress was very slow. Laurent questioned whether they were more in danger exposed in the open making progress of only as far as Damen could walk in a long day than they had been in hiding in the cave. Damen steered them away from the road and evaded the farmhouses that dotted the landscape.

Laurent spent the day doing nothing more than sitting a guided horse moving at a walk, and yet by the time the light faded and Damen offered him a hand to dismount, Laurent felt as though his eyes were already drifting shut. He waved off Damen’s offer to look at his head injury and settled himself up against the side of the haystack and was asleep before Damen had finished tending to the horse. 

It was summer, and they were not as far north as Kempt, so the night was cool out in the open. Laurent awoke because he was chilled, curled in on himself and pressed into the hay. Upon waking, Laurent could feel the heat rising off of his companion, and he rearranged himself against the haystack closer to be pressed up against Damen’s back. The new position let him take advantage of Damen’s warmth and use him as a shield against the chill of the ground.

Breakfast was a stolen loaf of bread and not nearly enough to satisfy either of them after the travail of the day before, but there was nothing to be done except keep moving. 

They halted late in the afternoon in the ruins of an old mill, and Damen left Laurent resting propped against an old cracked grindstone while he went to set a snare. Laurent allowed his eyes to drift shut as Damen walked away, as though he were only going to nap in exhaustion. But as the noise of Damen’s footfalls grew further into the distance, Laurent opened his eyes again and watched Damen’s departure. 

When Damen’s figure had faded amongst the short trees near the river, Laurent crawled away from the grindstone to where Damen had tucked the horse’s saddlebag. He seated himself on the ground carefully -- his head was worst affected by sudden movements, though it was much improved -- and opened the bag to inspect the contents.

Much of the bag was filled with supplies that seemed as though they would be typical to those a soldier would keep with him on a campaign. There were two brushes and a hoof pick for care of the horse. Laurent had seen Damen using those as he tended to the mare; she was now grazing in the meadow near the mill ruins. There was a small woolen blanket that Damen had been using as a saddle pad. The bag contained four knives, which was somewhat surprising as Laurent had seen Damen take two knives along with him as he went to set the snares. Laurent took one of the sheathed knives and tucked it into his own belt. There was some twine, a woolen hat of the type a man might use to protect his head from the metal of an unpadded helmet, and a small leather coin purse.

Laurent spread the woolen hat out on his lap and emptied the coin purse onto it. The purse held a handful of small coins. There were six silver pennies and two copper ones. They were all Veretian, with the emblem of the Regency of Vere on one side and the value of the coin marked on the other. The coins had been used long enough to lose the fresh sheen they had when they came clean from the engraver. Damen was not a man who sat around polishing his fortune, then. 

More interesting than the selection of pennies, though, was the ring that was nestled amongst them. Unlike the pennies, the ring was gold. The elaborate engraving was fine work, and the sapphire inset was large and worth significantly more than the coins it sat near, and probably worth more than the horse. It was a signet ring. At first Laurent thought that the emblem etched in the gold was the same as the one on the pennies, with the shield of protection guarding the country and the ribbon flying behind it. But the shield was engraved with a starburst, which was the traditional heraldry of the crown prince of Vere, not the Regent.

Laurent held the ring up to the light, inspecting it from each angle. Then the horse whinnied a greeting to Damen, approaching from the riverbanks, and Laurent tucked the ring and the coins back into the purse, and buried the purse again where he had found it at the bottom of the saddlebag. He settled himself again with his back to the grindstone, resting his head against the cool stone, and closing his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Laurent rested while Damen built up a fire. Damen squatted near the fire, arranging a spit that balanced near the flames for his catch. 

Laurent thought about the ring. He had already considered their other possessions that he could see. His own clothes were well made and well tended, at least up until the very recent past, where it seemed he had been dragged through the dirt repeatedly and then worn them for a week without washing. But they were simple, dark brown in color, and unadorned. They fit well and were comfortable. Damen’s clothes were made of different material but similarly plain. Damen had a jacket that did not quite lace in the front, as though it had been made for a man who was narrower in the shoulders. Neither of them were wearing any jewelry, though Laurent had found in inspecting his own face that there were holes in his ears as though at some point in his life he had been accustomed to such decoration. When Damen had bent over him to inspect his head wound he had noted that Damen’s ears were not similarly adorned.

Perhaps they were thieves, Laurent decided. That would explain how they had ended up being on the run with very little except a mysterious treasure. Damen seemed an honorable sort, perhaps he was uncomfortable with their profession, which is why he had not yet revealed it to Laurent openly. Or perhaps he was accustomed to looking to Laurent for direction. There was something in the way that he looked upon Laurent that Laurent could not quite place. 

Damen departed again to check the snares he had set, and Laurent closed his eyes, and when he opened them again it was clearly twilight rather than afternoon, and the sun was red and only glimpses of it were visible from the tree line near the river.

He looked for Damen, and found him squatting near the fire again, reaching out to turn his spit and rotate the meat.

Then Laurent caught a glimpse of movement behind Damen, in the grass near his feet. It was a sinuous movement through the grass, and Laurent watched it for a moment before he realized.

“Don’t move.” The urgency he felt must have shown in his voice, for Damen became completely still, his hand still grasping the end of the spit.

Laurent reached for a large rounded stone; it was the only thing near to him that would be even near to helpful. He moved slowly, grasping the stone carefully and rising to a crouch, and then he went two steps closer to Damen and struck the snake, hard, aiming as clearly as he could in the grass for the head, because if he missed the animal, it was going to end up biting him now, rather than Damen.

Laurent’s aim was true, and he cracked the skull with his blow. Damen swiveled around, poised for movement. Damen’s eyes widened as he took in the size of the snake in the grass. “Is it venomous?”

Noting to himself that Laurent had recognized the snake and oddly his companion did not, Laurent simply nodded. 

“You saved my life,” said Damen, his eyes still wide. His pupils were huge and his eyes seemed very black.

“Well, if I am struck in the head and you lose a leg to venom poisoning, then we will make no progress,” said Laurent. He had acted impulsively in killing the snake, seeing it as a threat and dispatching it before had truly considered the situation, but Damen’s gratefulness felt strange somehow. Had Damen not just spent the last week caring for Laurent after his own injury? Also, Laurent was not certain that if Damen were not there that he would have been as adept at foraging for his own food. He had watched Damen assemble a snare earlier in their trip, and that task seemed foreign to him in a manner that recognizing a venomous snake or riding a horse were not.

Damen nodded, slowly. “Thank you,” he said, and then turned back toward the fire. Laurent returned to his seat to watch. The air between them had a strange frisson of tension.

After they ate, there were only a few minutes of light remaining before the sun slipped away entirely. Damen used it to inspect Laurent’s head. After a few moments of poking at the scab and matted hair, he made a frustrated indeterminate noise.

“Perhaps if you washed,” said Damen.

“Yes,” said Laurent quickly, the idea seeming more appealing as he thought on it. “Do you have anything that might work to cut my hair?”

Damen dug through the saddlebag and removed one of the knives. Laurent held his breath and wondered if Damen would remark upon the knife that Laurent had removed from the bag and tucked into his own clothing, but Damen either did not notice or did not bring it up.

They walked down to the river.

Walking had improved for Laurent over the last two days. He could walk unassisted, now, and if he moved slowly with careful steps intended to not jostle his head overly much, then he did not become dizzy or disoriented.

Laurent halted near a tree stump to disrobe. Over his tunic he was wearing a leather vest, and the vest laced on the sides but tied -- impractically -- at the back, so he turned his back in Damen’s direction and waited impatiently. 

Damen remained three steps away. 

“Help me with the laces,” Laurent directed. 

Damen approached him slowly, and managed to carefully and slowly pick apart the knots tied in the back of Laurent’s vest without touching Laurent while he did so. Once freed, Laurent pulled the vest off, setting it carefully on the tree stump, and then removed his tunic and his undershirt, shivering briefly as his skin was exposed to the air. He turned to sit on the stump as he removed his boots, only to see Damen, still completely dressed, staring off toward the river.

“You don’t smell any better than I do,” said Laurent. “Are you not bathing also?”

Damen turned back toward Laurent as he pulled off one of his boots and started on the other. Damen was not smiling, but Laurent could recognize some amusement in his eyes.

“I am not coated in as much dried blood as you are,” said Damen.

It was true, barely. Portions of Damen’s clothing were stained with blood. Laurent assumed it was his own, head injuries bled an unreasonable amount. 

“I might need assistance washing,” said Laurent, setting his second boot on the ground and removing his trousers.

Damen made a half-laugh, half-choked noise, but started removing his own boots as Laurent stepped carefully down the river bank. 

There was a shallow area near a willow tree that arched out over the water, and Laurent used one of the lower branches for balance. The water was cold but felt refreshing even as he could feel gooseflesh forming on his skin from the temperature. They had no soap, but he scrubbed at himself briefly with some fine sand from the river bed, and then contemplated his head. He submerged himself -- he felt that he did know how to swim, somehow, as he had known he knew how to ride a horse. And once his head was under the surface he could feel the cold water rushing over the scabbed wound, his hair flowing through his hands like short pieces of seaweed.

He surfaced. “I think the hair must be cut,” he said, turning to look for Damen, and when he turned, he caught sight of an expression on Damen’s face that suddenly slotted several of his questions about their relationship into place. For it was quite plain, in the manner that Damen was gazing upon him, that Damen wished to take him to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

Laurent was better at controlling his expressions than his companion. Or he thought he was, anyway. He had no mirror with which to examine his own aspect, but he could feel the control he had over his face and he did not see Damen react to his own expressions. 

Laurent climbed up the river bank back to the tree stump. “Can you cut it?” he asked, seating himself and gesturing at his hair.

Damen walked over to him slowly, knife held loosely in his hand. Laurent watched him approach, noticing the strength in his body as he moved, thought about it specifically. Did he recognize it, the way this man moved? Was it because they were intimate? It seemed familiar to him in some manner that he would have been hard pressed to describe.

Damen cupped one of his hands over Laurent’s head gently to protect the wound, but a knife was a poor tool for cutting hair, and the hacking jerked at the skin painfully regardless. Laurent clenched his teeth together and focused on the feel of a drip of blood from the opened scab fall down his temple. 

After his hair was shorn, Damen inspected his head again with a frown. Laurent noted their position. While seated, his head was around Damen’s waistline, and Damen was forced to step quite close to him to cut his hair and check the wound. The hair had fallen to the tree stump and the ground in wet clumps. Laurent shivered, suddenly. He could feel the warmth emanating off of Damen’s body.

Damen pronounced that his head seemed to be healing well. “Are you a physician?” said Laurent.

“No,” said Damen, shaking his head. “Did you want a salve?”

Laurent laughed, and gathered up his clothes from the tree stump. He pulled them on again, tying his vest in the front for the convenience of being able to remove it himself. His head felt lighter without his hair. He inspected his hair and his wound with his own hand. The hair was closely shorn, and uneven, very close to the scalp in some places and twice as long in others. 

They made their way back to the camp. Damen tended to the fire. Laurent spread out their saddle blanket.

Damen seemed hesitant to settle beside him. Finally Damen sat down on the ground and Laurent moved next to him.

“I’ve come to realize what we are to each other,” said Laurent. 

“Oh?” said Damen, sounding wary.

“It’s quite plain from how you look at me,” said Laurent. He reached out to caress Damen through his trousers, making his meaning clear with his hand. Damen bit his lip.

“You will regret this when you remember who you are,” said Damen. 

Laurent opened Damen’s trousers singlehandedly. “You can’t be that bad in bed,” he reasoned. “But you will regret not bathing, because if you had I could possibly have been persuaded to use my mouth.”

Damen seemed equally as affected by his words as he was by Laurent’s hand, so Laurent used his mouth for that purpose. “Is it my voice that you like,” he asked, “or my choice of words? Do you want to hear sweet words whispered in your ear or do you wish to be directed?”

It finished with Damen arching his back as he came, biting off a syllable. Laurent wondered if it were an aborted attempt at his own name, but he could not derive what he might be called from a man’s cry as he finished, and he simply wiped off his his hand on Damen’s tunic. Damen glared at him weakly. 

Laurent wondered why Damen thought he would regret this when he remembered himself. Was Damen married? Why would he not have said so? Was Laurent married? He considered that for a moment. He didn’t feel married, but then, he didn’t feel like a thief, either, and yet the evidence was there in Damen’s saddlebag.

“You act as though there is some great tragedy between us,” said Laurent. He noted how Damen seemed to be debating between reaching for Laurent or not.

“There is,” said Damen. “It seems wrong to me that you do not remember it.”

Laurent stilled in place. “And so?”

“I killed your brother,” said Damen.

Laurent narrowed his eyes. “You are a soldier.”

“In battle, yes. He was a good fighter. One of the best I have ever faced.”

Laurent canted his head to the side, considering. His brother must have been of a different build than Laurent himself, for it seemed clear that Damen would have several advantages over Laurent if they crossed swords even if Laurent were not suffering from a head injury and likely to topple over if he moved too quickly. “You fought honorably,” he said. 

“Of course,” said Damen, sounding insulted by the implication that he might not have.

Laurent settled the matter in his own mind and dismissed it from his concern. “And yet I am still with you here. Clearly it is in the past.”

Damen seemed to be on the edge of protest.

“Come to bed,” said Laurent. “And I will note that I have bathed, so you should feel free to use your mouth.”

Damen laughed, a helpless and somehow mirthless sound, but he reclined next to Laurent on the blanket and obliged when Laurent pushed on his shoulders and directed him down.

 

The next day they approached Brioude. Brioude was a larger town than the village markets they had skirted the day before, and as they regarded it from the top of a hill Laurent could count probably five hundred buildings. He made out several stretches of roads with buildings two or three stories tall, a market square filled with morning bustle, and the central area of the town surrounded by fenced pens of sheep, shorter houses, and outbuildings.

There were no walls around Brioude, so they approached on the main road and stopped to water the horse at the well on the way in to the town. There was a pool of water near the pump, and Laurent inspected his reflection. 

“You have the hair cutting skills of a sheep shearer,” he told Damen, who simply rolled his eyes. He was picketing the horse. 

“Perhaps you will have a bald spot,” said Damen, gesturing toward Laurent’s injury. “Or a streak of silver or white amongst the rest of your hair. Sometimes that happens when a man is struck hard on the head.”

Laurent looked at him in horror, picturing it, and Damen laughed warmly.

“I did not realize you were so vain,” said Damen, not without affection.

“Neither did I,” said Laurent under his breath. “Do you really think I might have a bald spot?”

“If so,” said Damen, “It is sure to be more attractive than your current oozing scab.”

That was probably true. Damen produced the woolen hat from the saddlebag and handed it over to Laurent. “For your vanity,” he said, and Laurent pulled the hat on delicately over his head without comment.

They walked into the town. Brioude was known in particular for its candles, and they passed several chandlers as they walked to the town center and the market. They needed supplies, Laurent knew. They were going to make their way south to Akielos -- that was the destination Damen had given him, at least -- and they would need more than they had presently. Laurent wondered if Damen were also trying to sell the cache from their previous thievery, but he suspected that they would need an even larger town or at least a dealer that they knew to be able to receive a reasonable value for a prince’s ring. 

Laurent was taking in the market from a spot in front of a brothel and a shoemaker’s stall when there was a commotion on the other side of the square. Riders were approaching in on the main road, and people were bustling to the side to make way for the procession through the narrow street and buzzing to each other about this arrival. “It’s the Regent,” said the shoemaker to his apprentice, "He must be searching for --" but before Laurent could hear the shoemaker finish, Damen looked up from his inspection of a lead line to review the procession himself. Damen took in the Regent’s standard flying high at the head of the riders, and then Damen grabbed on to Laurent’s arm and pulled him in to the brothel as the nearest door that happened to be by them.

The front room of the brothel was decorated with lounging benches and cushions, and the benches were decorated with with a beautiful woman. She approached the two of them with a sultry look that didn’t suit the time of day. “Welcome,” she said. “Shall I fetch one of my friends, or are you two gentlemen together?” she asked.

“We’re not--” said Damen, pushing Laurent away from the doorway and letting the wooden door swing closed behind them. Damen stepped to the window, where he closed the shutters. 

“Wouldn’t you rather go upstairs?” the woman said. “It’s so much more comfortable.”

Laurent felt his eyes flick from the woman to Damen and back as though he were a nobleman watching a tennis match. He knelt on one of the benches to peak through a crack in the shutters that Damen had closed. 

The procession of riders had reached the center of the market. A crier carrying the Regent’s standard was reading off an announcement, while the riders looked on solemnly. There was a middle-aged man wearing fine clothes riding in the center. Laurent felt his eyes drawn to the man. He sat a fine horse, was strongly built but carrying some extra weight as a man who has the leisure to eat well, and had medium-brown hair and a closely trimmed beard. The other men were guards, wearing the livery of the Regent of Vere. 

“We do not wish to go upstairs,” Damen was insisting to the woman, who had moved quite close to Damen in her efforts at persuasion. 

Laurent frowned at the scene unfolding through the shutters.

“I think I recognize that man,” said Laurent, meaning the one at the head of the procession.

Damen looked over toward Laurent for a moment. Laurent turned away from the window and saw Damen’s expression. “Actually we would like to go upstairs,” said Damen, turning back to the woman.


	5. Chapter 5

“Why do I recognize him?” said Laurent, half to himself. He leaned over to look again out the crack in the shutters. 

The crier had finished his announcement, and a small crowd of people had formed around the riders, speaking one at a time as they were called upon by the crier. Laurent focused his eyes on the Regent again. The sense of familiarity was unmistakable. He knew the man. He knew the man’s face, the color of his hair and the trim of his beard. He knew the man’s posture and the way he held himself upon a horse. But he could not have said the man’s name, or listed any time when they had been together, or recalled the context of their introduction.

“Come upstairs,” Damen said to him, placing a hand on Laurent’s upper arm. 

Laurent followed obediently up the wooden staircase. While Laurent had been distracted by looking out the window, Damen had apparently managed to convince the woman that they did not require companionship, merely privacy, and Damen closed the door to the room they were led to firmly behind them, turning the bolt. Their room had a window but it overlooked the back alley behind the brothel, not the market square, so Laurent could no longer look out the window at the man he remembered.

“Will he recognize us?” said Laurent, looking Damen in the eye. “Is he dangerous?”

“Yes,” Damen said, his eyes scanning the room and seeing the window. “We should leave.”

Laurent looked over the room himself. It was sparsely furnished. There was a fireplace near the door, and a chair positioned near to it. On the other side of the room was the window overlooking the alley -- Damen had his head sticking out of it, looking left and right -- and the bed.

The bed. There was nothing special about it -- it was a serviceable bed in a brothel, and probably none too clean. But it connected something in Laurent’s head, suddenly. 

Damen turned from the window. “We can crawl out upon the balcony,” he said.

Laurent held still in place, remembering. It was as though his mind were a spider’s web and a fly had suddenly landed in it, stuck to the strands of silk and struggling, tugging on the other threads of his thoughts. “I remember how I know him.”

Damen hit his head on the window frame as he ducked back inside. “You do?”

Laurent bit his lip, frowning. “He gave me a gift -- a jewel. He told me I was beautiful.”

Damen had a concerned expression. 

Laurent stared at the bed. In his head he could picture another bed, much more ornate. He supposed that -- along with gifts of jewels -- was the reward of sleeping with the upper classes. “I think we were lovers.”

Damen blanched. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“Don’t be jealous,” said Laurent. “Clearly I am with you now, and not him. You must have some advantages, to have won me from someone so rich.”

Damen looked vaguely ill. Laurent wondered if Damen were the type of man who was prone to jealousy.

“You have had a hard blow to the head,” said Damen. “You might not be remembering everything perfectly just yet.”

The scene that Laurent had remembered was clear enough within his head, though without context, as a scene in a dream might have been. He could not have said how he came to be in that bedroom, or what had followed after that night. But he did not think he was recalling falsely.

Laurent attempted to be reassuring. “Probably it was before I knew you.”

Damen yet appeared skeptical.

Laurent crossed the room to join Damen near the window. The ground of the alley was dirt, which would be easier to land upon than cobblestone, but it was close to three stories and too far to jump. There was a small balcony that they might swing to from the window frame, and it might be reasonable to dangle from the bottom frame of the balcony and then drop to the ground without injury.

Damen was watching him closely. “About that man.”

Laurent picked up their bag and handed it to Damen to carry. “You should probably go first,” he said.

Damen hesitated.

“Do you wish a reassurance of my affections this particular moment?” said Laurent, raising an eyebrow over at the bed. “I am willing, but I was under the impression you felt there was some urgency to our departure.”

When Damen frowned there was a crease in his forehead. Laurent wondered why it did not trigger the same set of memories in him as seeing the man in the marketplace. Perhaps Damen was right to feel jealous.

“I,” Damen began, and stopped, and seemed to be searching for the correct words. 

Laurent began to feel impatient. He stepped closer to Damen, thinking that proximity might help settle the decision of whether they intended to linger long enough for an interlude in bed. 

Damen turned toward him, and then abandoned his attempts at finding words in favor of moving closer to Laurent and pressing him up against the wall next to the window. Laurent was boxed in by the greater bulk of Damen’s body, Damen’s arms on either side of him framing him up against the wall. Laurent felt a brief moment of uncertainty, where he felt almost frightened by the expression on Damen’s face and his position caught between Damen and the wall. 

Then Damen raised one hand to cup Laurent’s chin gently, and pressed in even closer to take his lips in a kiss, and Laurent suddenly found he enjoyed the position, he liked the feeling of being caught, possessed, held preciously and carefully. He yielded his mouth to Damen’s explorations. 

He realized it was the first time that they had kissed since he had lost his memory, since they had not made love in that fashion the evening before by the river. And there was something novel to the kiss because of that, something exploratory and with the frisson of excitement that accompanied a new adventure.

Laurent felt his arousal growing. He wanted Damen, suddenly, with urgency. He had his hands bunched in the folds of fabric on Damen’s shoulders, and he wanted Damen’s shirt off and to run his hands over skin, instead. Damen was breathing heavily into his neck and seemed similarly affected. Laurent was not certain how likely it was that the men Damen was worried about knew that they were here, or would find them during a search, but he supposed that they could take time to satisfy themselves before continuing.

“I want you to fuck me,” Laurent said, his voice low, and he enjoyed the shudder that went through Damen's body with his words. Damen stepped away and looked at him with dark eyes. He seemed about to move over to the bed, and then they both stilled, hearing noise in the hallway.

There were footsteps, and then men’s voices talking with the woman who had let them in to the room, and suddenly they were in motion again, and Laurent crawled out the window and on to the ledge. 

He managed the climb over to the balcony quite easily -- his body must have been accustomed to this type of misadventure prior to his injury, he supposed. The drop to the ground shook him, and he went to his knees in the dirt for a moment, breathing and waiting for his vision to come back from the black spots that had temporarily taken over it. 

Damen landed beside him with more grace than Laurent had managed, and then crouched next to Laurent. “Are you all right?” Damen asked quietly. 

“Yes,” said Laurent, for his vision was clearing. Damen extended a hand to him and he managed to stand. They could hear the sound of horses at the alley entrance, and Damen pushed Laurent up close to the building so they could hide behind a large barrel as the riders passed.

Then there were noises from the window above them, and Damen said, “Come!” and began running toward the back exit of the alley, and Laurent followed.


	6. Chapter 6

The chase was exhilarating. It involved three alleys, a turn through the market square where Laurent momentarily diverted himself by relieving a merchant of a heavy purse, a short cut through a tavern, a hilarious moment of hiding in a sheep field followed by an escape along the low stable rooftops, and it finally ended with the theft of two horses and the two of them abandoning Brioude behind them. 

They raced out of the town, more out of excitement than with a clear destination or need for putting ground behind them, but when they finally stopped to walk the horses along a more wooded portion of the trail near a creek, Laurent found himself laughing.

Damen looked over at him, and seemed torn between concern and helpless shared amusement. “Perhaps that hit on the head has addled you more than you thought,” said Damen. 

“Fuck me,” said Laurent, dropping the reins and hoping the horse he’d stolen had the good fortune to be trained for ground tying. 

“What?” said Damen, turning from the creek to look at Laurent again. He looked around as though there might be a bed hidden behind a tree, or someone else there who Laurent might have been speaking to.

Laurent felt as though he suddenly understood who he was and why he was here. It had not felt familiar, when he’d decided they must be thieves, and he had not totally understood why he had thrown his lot in with this man, when it seemed that there must be so many other options available to him. He had seen his own reflection. Before the hideous scab on his head he must have been attractive enough to have had his pick of suitors. 

But he understood, now. He loved the thrill of their madcap dash through the town, he loved the feeling of the blood coursing through his veins at this particular moment, he could imagine that the first time he had shared that with Damen that of course it had been addictive, because he could only imagine wanting more. He backed himself up against a large tree trunk and beckoned Damen to him with his hand.

“Here?” Damen said, still sounding surprised. 

“Now,” Laurent said firmly, resting a hand on Damen’s shoulder when he became close enough and pulling Damen in closer. He ducked his head in to nip his teeth along Damen’s jaw. “I have been very patient in waiting all day.”

“We don’t even have --” Damen objected, and Laurent forestalled his concern by pressing into Damen’s hand a phial of oil, the other item he’d lifted from their dash through the marketplace.

Laurent divested himself of his trousers as Damen looked around them helplessly for an even patch of ground where they could recline. “Lift me up,” Laurent directed, wrapping one hand around Damen’s bicep pointedly. 

And when Damen seemed still inclined to half-hearted protests, Laurent silenced them with his mouth.

He might have been wrong in attributing his earlier excitement at kissing Damen to it being the first time he remembered. It was no longer as novel as the earlier kiss, and yet he felt that same excitement. The same energy coursing through him, the same anticipation building. 

Damen fumbled with the oil and reached a hand down to prepare Laurent. “Still yourself for a moment,” he said. Laurent felt as though his hips had the sinuous energy of a snake in the grass, and they were moving against Damen almost of their own accord. 

“Are you always so tedious?” said Laurent, because he already felt on edge. He was trembling and his pulse was quick. He wanted more.

Damen refused to be rushed, and it seemed the moments were interminably long until he was finally sliding in to Laurent. Laurent liked how Damen was holding up his weight and did not seem to be showing any strain from doing so, he liked how it meant Damen controlled the position and the depth, though he was not entirely satisfied with Damen’s selection of a slow pace, and informed him of this. 

Damen shushed Laurent’s attempts to speed their joining. “You’re too tight, wait,” said Damen.

Laurent could feel the stretch of Damen inside of him and made a noise in response, half-pleasure, half-questioning. “Do we not favor this position, usually?” he said. “How foolish.”

“You talk just the same,” said Damen, with a helpless half breath of laughter, and then he began to move more seriously, and Laurent lost his words altogether.

 

Afterward, they resumed walking the horses along the creek and Laurent showed Damen the purse he had stolen. “This will help with the supplies we need,” he said. 

“Where did you get that?” said Damen.

“One of the men in the market,” said Laurent.

“When did you have time to grab someone’s purse?” said Damen, and Laurent shrugged. Their hasty dash through the market -- and Damen’s collision with a fruit cart -- had been a perfect distraction from his pickpocketing.

“Tell me of the man in the market,” said Laurent, and Damen’s face clouded. “Don’t be jealous,” Laurent said, a slightly harder tone. “I need to know why his men are searching for us. Did we steal something from him?”

Damen swallowed. There was a long pause during which Dame avoided Laurent’s eyes by focusing his attention very closely on navigating some stones in the creek bed. “Yes,” he said.

Laurent nodded. “Do we have a cache of supplies nearby?” he said. 

Damen was still staring intently at their path. “We should have access to more supplies when we make it to Akielos.”

Laurent frowned. He had a notion that Akielos was still a fair distance away, and it seemed odd that they would have stolen something expensive enough recently enough that a man was still actively hunting for them, and yet that they did not seem to have the item on them, nor did they have more wealth nearby. Perhaps they had owed a debt, or were unable to exchange the item into coin. Perhaps they were honorable thieves as in the legend, stealing only from the rich and then distributing the stolen wealth among the poor.

They agreed to separate in the evening, reluctantly. They still needed the supplies that they had not been able to purchase in Brioude, and one man traveling in to make purchases drew less attention than two, especially if their searchers were seeking two men together. Laurent could not go in to Emilion alone as easily as Damen could because Laurent might not recognize men whom he ought to know, so he tended to the campfire, turned over the pickpocketed purse to Damen, and waited.


	7. Chapter 7

Laurent had a moment of -- he wouldn’t let himself call it fear, exactly -- but of disquiet, while Damen was off fetching supplies, but Damen returned at exactly the time he had said he would, with the supplies he had said he would bring. When he returned, he handed back the purse to Laurent with a casual thoughtless gesture, and something of the tightness in Laurent’s chest loosened.

They began traveling again early the next day, worried about any search parties that might be coming out of Brioude. They had two horses now, so they could both ride rather than Damen walking beside the horse, waiting to see if Laurent happened to fall off, and they made much faster progress toward the border.

Reaching the Akielon border didn’t seem like a particularly intuitive destination to Laurent. Surely there was more wealth in Vere than in Akielos, and so it seemed an odd place for men of their profession to head. But Damen remained taciturn on certain subjects and the motivations behind where they were headed was one of them. Laurent teased Damen, instead, picking out items on the landscape and describing them in lascivious and dirty words, then mocking Damen for taking his short poem about a tree or a rock or a rabbit as having a double meaning. Damen rolled his eyes and occasionally laughed, and the morning passed quickly.

In the afternoon, they reached a natural hot spring. Laurent had wondered why the path they had been following seemed to diverge suddenly to the east, and then when they came upon the springs the answer became clear. “I want to wash,” said Laurent. Some of the supplies Damen had gotten for them included a second set of clothing, but their original blood-stained clothes were still tucked in the saddle bag.

“You just washed two days ago,” said Damen, as though that were a reasonable objection.

Laurent narrowed his eyes. “I suspect your philosophy on bathing has been a source of disagreement between us.”

Damen seemed suddenly subdued; his expression serious and his eyes focused on the path. “I’ll keep watch,” said Damen, settling himself on a rock ledge near the path and the horses, resolutely facing away from where the spring bubbled up.

Laurent looked at him for a moment. Given that Damen had not insisted that one of them take watch the evening before as they slept, or that he had not seemed concerned about it when they had sex, he either had very odd notions about bathing or he was particularly worried that someone would find them there.

Laurent tested the water carefully to ensure that it was not so hot that it might burn his skin, and then shed his clothing and folded it in a neat pile next to his boots before easing himself slowing into the heated water.

The warmth of the water felt pleasant on his muscles, and he took a deep breath of the mineral-soaked air before he ducked his head under the surface, grimacing as the water covered his scab. 

Out of respect for Damen’s odd concerns he didn’t linger as long in the spring as he might have liked, and returned to where Damen was sitting.

“Are you certain you do not wish to wash?” said Laurent. 

Damen glanced over his shoulder back toward the hot spring, and then back at Laurent. 

“I could keep watch for you, if you are concerned for your modesty,” said Laurent dryly.

“I would actually like to wash,” said Damen. “Thank you,” and he handed the line he’d been holding for one of the horses to Laurent, and walked back toward the spring.

Laurent took in the terrain. It was possible to see a great distance surrounding the area with the springs from on top of the rock; it would not be possible for approaching men to take bathers by surprise. Rolling his eyes at the foibles of his companion, he turned around to watch Damen in the water.

Damen had also removed his clothes, though the rumpled pile where he left them was less orderly than Laurent had been with his own things. Damen was easing himself into the water, and Laurent realized, as his eyes lingered on Damen’s form, that he did not remember seeing Damen ever completely naked before. All of their encounters had been rushed and partially clothed or out in the open air where it was too cold to lounge naked in the middle of the night. Laurent’s eyes moved over Damen’s body as Damen soaked himself, ducking his head and plastering his dark curls closer to his own head with the wetness. 

Damen turned, and Laurent’s view became his back instead of his front, and Laurent gasped. 

He tucked the horse line into a crevice and scrambled over the rock and down by the spring.

“Your back,” he said. “What happened?”

Damen turned in surprise. “You were supposed to keep watch.”

“You’ve been whipped,” said Laurent. “And not that long ago.”

There was a moment of silence between them.

“Yes,” said Damen, unnecessarily.

“Why did you not tell me?” said Laurent. “I did not realize that both of us were injured.”

“I am not injured. There is no need for concern,” said Damen, but Laurent simply walked around behind Damen to perform his own assessment of the situation. His back was covered with welts in the stage of red new scars. They were not bleeding or oozing, but Laurent guessed that they might still have been painful, especially if your occupation involved riding, running around on rooftops, and sleeping on the ground.

“They have healed well,” Laurent acknowledged. He ran a finger along one of the marks, gently, but Damen shivered visibly. Damen’s body was not without other scars; he had the marks of a lifetime of adventure. Laurent found what seemed to be a knife wound on his calf, and a quite serious scar from something large -- a spear? -- on his shoulder.

Laurent’s eyes moved from Damen’s body to his face, and he found Damen’s expression inscrutable and uncomfortable.

“Perhaps you are the vain one,” said Laurent.

“It’s not vanity,” said Damen, his voice tight. “I --” it seemed that he might have been about to say more, but stopped himself. He was holding his hands very deliberately at his sides; Laurent could see Damen clench and unclench his fingers.

“You seem to like my eyes on you,” said Laurent, glancing down where Damen’s erection was demonstrating his interest in being naked while Laurent performed his inspection. Damen’s face did not express the same measure of enthusiasm, though, and Laurent focused his gaze again on Damen’s eyes.

Damen’s eyes were a deep brown, and he had a crease between them when he frowned. 

“It was my fault, wasn’t it,” said Laurent, understanding suddenly.

“What?” said Damen, hilariously glancing down at his own erection as though that were the subject of Laurent’s reference.

“Well, that too,” said Laurent. “But I meant your back. You hid it because it was my fault, didn’t you.” He was certain now that it was true, with nothing specific to back him up besides his improved ability at reading Damen’s face. And as Damen took his meaning, he saw in Damen’s face that it was true, and nodded, slowly.

“It is nothing to concern yourself with,” said Damen, seeming serious.

Laurent considered for a moment, and then decided to turn the moment arch, and glanced down at Damen’s arousal again, raised an eyebrow, and said, “All right then,” and proceeded to not concern himself with it, turning on his heel and returning to keep watch.

They didn’t speak much the remainder of the day, and the silence between them felt alternately companionable and tense. As they settled to sleep, Laurent could feel Damen darting little glances over in his direction. He extended an arm in invitation and Damen moved in closer to him. Their fucking was more tender that evening than it had been the last few times, slower and more lingering. Laurent hovered on the edge while Damen touched him gently for what felt like hours, and he did not know if he liked it. He felt unmoored, as though he were adrift at sea. He was angry suddenly with Damen for not telling him more about himself, for not keeping him tied to a pier and from being so lost. 

“Tell me something true about myself,” Laurent said suddenly, bringing his eyes wide open in the darkness and looking up at where Damen was holding himself slightly above Laurent with his weight on his arms. 

Damen’s eyes opened as well; they seemed very dark. He met Laurent’s gaze in the darkness. They were under a tree, and Laurent could see the moon above him in the sky peaking through the leaves over Damen’s head. 

“I’m not sure that I know anything true about you,” said Damen, and it sounded reverent rather than dismissive, and then he said, with a deeper pitch, “I need --” and finished, and Laurent followed shortly after.


	8. Chapter 8

The following evening they walked into a trap. 

Laurent would not have said that it was possible for a woman to perch like a bat on the edge of the canyon wall at all, much less do so with her hands free to hold a crossbow pointed in his direction. When he was proven mistaken on this, he raised his hands in surrender. Vaskians were surprising. 

Damen seemed to be fighting some sort of internal battle with himself where he contemplated fighting the four other women who had emerged from their camouflaged positions along the rock wall while Laurent was shot by an arrow. 

“Raise your hands,” Laurent directed, and Damen did so slowly.

One of the women signaled for them to dismount, and the arrow remained pointed at his chest while another of the women bound their hands behind them. Then one of the women slipped a blindfold over Laurent’s eyes, and he assumed she did the same for Damen, but he couldn’t see it.

They walked, not too great a distance, perhaps an hour over even terrain. Laurent could hear the horses being led along with them, so the terrain could not be too steep. He tried to make out each of the footsteps separately. Damen’s were the heaviest beside him, due to his size and clumsiness while blindfolded. The archer’s were the lightest toward the rear of the party.

The women were talking amongst themselves, not about anything of substance, but a mention of seeing a hawk, or a warning to each other about a tree root in the path. Laurent felt Damen stumble beside him even after one of the women tried to warn him, and realized that Damen did not speak Vaskian.

Laurent could tell that they had arrived by the changes in the noises. There were more horses near than just the two he and Damen had been riding, and a dog--no, he corrected himself, hearing another bark, at least two dogs, perhaps a bitch and a pup. There were more people, likely women by the sound of their steps. In the center of the camp he could hear the crackling of a fire, the sound of laughter, and some musicians playing drums. 

It seemed from the words Laurent could make out that someone in charge was being fetched to regard the prisoners. The woman in charge seemed to be treated with deference by the others. When a flinty voice said, “Take off the blindfold,” Laurent suddenly found himself blinking as the shapes of the camp fires, the long leather tents, and the Vaskian women came into focus.

He turned his head from side to side, stretching his neck. Damen was standing beside him, still wearing his blindfold. Laurent could see the tension in his body as he pulled his wrists tight against the rope that bound them.

The woman the others treated with deference was standing in front of them. She was a head shorter than Laurent, of the same build as the archer that had caught them unawares, and Laurent could envision her perching on the edge of a cliff with the same ease when she had been perhaps twenty years younger.

“I thought you were dead,” she said, in Vaskian.

“Clearly not,” Laurent said, replying in the same language. The woman recognized him, then, but with his hands tied behind his back he was not inclined to ask her the questions that Damen had not been willing to answer.

“Your uncle has been sending word to the border that you are dead,” said the woman.

Laurent kept his face expressionless, and shrugged one shoulder, as if to imply that there was not much he could do about such things and they bothered him very little.

“Are you going to kill him?” the woman said, with the air of one who has asked the same question previously but continues to seek a different answer. “Or do you persist in toying with him as a cat might a chipmunk?”

Laurent was not entirely certain of the Vaskian word she ended her sentence with, and if she meant a mouse, or a chipmunk, or some other type of small rodent, but he supposed it made little difference. Damen remained tense beside him.

“Perhaps I will have him,” he shrugged his shoulder in Damen’s direction, “kill him for me.”

The woman seemed to consider this. She turned her gaze on Damen, and ran her eyes over him as though she were inspecting a horse that was for sale and contemplating looking in its mouth. She poked Damen’s bicep, which caused him to stiffen in place and turn his head from one side to another.

“That has a certain symmetry, I suppose,” the woman said finally. “It is a good plan.” She nodded at one of her women, who approached and cut the ropes tying Laurent’s hands before turning to do the same for Damen. Laurent flexed his wrists and shoulders. Damen started in surprise when his hands were freed, and pulled the blindfold off himself before the woman could do it. He looked around, and Laurent could see him doing the same blinking analysis in the firelight that Laurent had done when first revealed. Damen’s eyes found Laurent next to him and he seemed to settle, slightly.

“You must be heading for Ravenel,” the woman said. The tone of her voice made it sound like a test.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Laurent returned, lightly.

The woman made an indignant noise with a breath of air and a closed mouth. “You will camp here tonight,” she said, and it was enough of an order that Laurent merely inclined his head gracefully in acceptance.

“We will share Vaskian hospitality tonight,” he said in Veretian, turning to Damen.

Damen seemed unhappy with the plan but remained silent, and followed beside Laurent as they were led to a fire, offered a cup of milky liquor to share, and provided a wooden bowl of spiced meat and some flat bread to eat it with.

The Vaskians seemed to expect them to forget that they had very recently been captured and blindfolded and taken here against their will, and were now friendly, offering them tastes of different kinds of meat from the spit roasts and offering to refill their goblet more frequently than seemed prudent. Laurent placed his hand over it and declined the pitcher, though he moved his hand and relinquished the cup to Damen when Damen gave him a frustrated look and reached for it.

There were more drummers than there had been earlier, and the drums were growing louder as the evening went on, and the drumbeats were growing faster.

After they were offered drink and food, there were offers of other kinds of favors, as some of the women made their way in their direction, bestowing especially upon Damen long, lingering glances to show their interest.

Laurent found himself vain enough to at least appreciate that Damen’s eyes remained on Laurent himself.

He let Damen drain their goblet before he spoke, relying on the sound of the drumming to cover his voice.

“She says that my uncle has sent word that I am dead,” and he watched Damen closely for a reaction, and saw a very small flinch. “What do you know about that?”

Damen was obviously refusing to meet his eyes, now, staring into the empty goblet. “Nothing,” he said finally.

“You’re lying,” said Laurent, his voice even and still low enough to be covered by the drumming. “Why will you not tell me what you know?”

Damen remained silent for a moment too long. Laurent rose from his place reclined on a pile of furs near the fire and retreated off into the quieter darkness near the horses, breathing slowly and feeling the cooler air on his face.

There was a footfall beside him and he turned to see Damen. 

“I want to tell you,” said Damen, holding out a hand in entreaty. “I want you to know that --”

But whatever Damen wished him to know was not uttered, because suddenly the camp was under attack.


	9. Chapter 9

The attack was in the mountain style, riders suddenly emerging upon the camp from the hills with their swords already drawn, the battlefield a melee of darkness as the women left their fires and took up their own weapons. Laurent armed himself with a sword as he saw a woman standing near them fetch one from a weapons sheath. Damen managed to relieve the man who had been foolish enough to attack him of his weapon and was now holding the curved Vaskian blade in his right hand.

Laurent arranged himself at Damen’s left, because that left Damen’s dominant right arm freedom to swing wide, and it also placed Damen protecting Laurent’s weak side, where he still had a head wound.

The fighting made the camp sound like a blacksmith’s shop in darkness, men and women moving in and out of the shadows cast by the fires, blades striking each other, the occasional shout or cry out in Vaskian. 

They were set up on by three men at once, and Damen dispatched one of them only to turn and see Laurent handily turning the other two on each other with a clever move. 

“You are good,” said Damen, and the surprise in his tone as he spoke of Laurent’s swordsmanship was somewhat insulting.

“There!” Laurent shouted back at him, focusing Damen’s attention on another rider approaching them. 

Damen dealt with the rider, but Laurent let watching Damen do so distract too much of his own attention, and missed the rider approaching from the other direction until he was close. He might not have seen the second rider at all, except that Damen turned, and Damen saw the rider -- Laurent could see the realization and worry in Damen’s face -- and Damen shouted, “Laurent!”

Laurent turned around in time to see the blow coming, and he was able to shift, somewhat, to change it from a fatal blow to a glancing one, but he was not able to evade it entirely. So he had only a moment to hear the echo of Damen’s voice calling his own name and then to think, “Damianos -- Prince Killer,” before he was struck on the head again and fell to ground.

He was vaguely sensible of Damen dragging him to a defensible position and standing over him as protection, keeping the rider who had struck him from finishing the job, and preventing Laurent from being trampled or forgotten in the general chaos.

Laurent could see Damen’s back in front of him. He could remember, now, and his hand searched at his belt for his knife. He closed his fingers around the hilt and thought -- I could kill him, right now. He had dreamed of killing the man who had so treacherously murdered Auguste for the past six years. His uncle was not near to stop him, to make him look rash and childish in front of the court. There was nothing to stay his hand.

He was not sure that he could stand, but he could probably throw the knife with sufficient accuracy to hit a man standing not three feet away from him. He supposed that the throw might not be strong enough to be fatal, but it would distract Damianos. He might then be killed by one of the raiders, Laurent thought. Though that seemed somehow unsatisfying. Laurent kept his grip on the knife. Sometimes it was preferable to wait for an opportunity that was better suited to one’s ambitions.

He must have lost consciousness sometime during the remainder of the fighting, because when he came to it was to find himself half-cradled in Damen’s lap, with an inelegant linen bandage being wrapped around his head.

“Don’t cover my eyes,” he said, and Damen obligingly adjusted the cloth. 

“You're awake," Damen said, a brilliant statement of the obvious. "Can you see?” Damen's voice sounded concerned. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“No,” said Laurent, “Because it is dark and you have wrapped a bandage around my eyes.” He pushed at the bandage himself, ineffectually. 

Another figure approached. Laurent could feel the approach more in the way Damen’s body tensed at someone else nearing them than he could see or hear her. 

It was Halvik; Laurent realized now that Halvik was the woman he had spoken with yesterday. She wore the traditional fur cloak of her people; Laurent should have known it when he first saw her.

“Your companion killed many raiders,” she said in Vaskian, nodding at Damen. Her voice sounded approving. “He will be a father to many warriors.”

It was a traditional Vaskian compliment, but it only caused Laurent to grit his teeth. “I don’t think so,” he said. Damianos was not going to live long enough to father many warriors.

Halvik cackled. Nothing put her in a good mood like a rousing battle. “Do you couple with him, then, in the Veretian style?”

Laurent was about to say “No,” with acid in his voice, when Halvik continued. She gestured toward one of the women near her, and the woman passed a small leather pouch to Damen.

“For your head,” said Halvik. “From the slopes. It will prevent swelling, so that you do not forget things or become simple.”

Damen opened the pouch to reveal a cloth filled with snow, and he wrapped the snow up in the cloth and then held it against Laurent’s bandaged head. Laurent could feel the cold seeping through the layers of cloth. 

“Thank you,” said Laurent, tightly.

Halvik regarded him for a moment before she took a step closer. “The raiders say they were paid to find a man with hair the color of butter.” She adjusted her furs on her shoulders. “Your uncle might not think you as dead as his messages have said.”

“Thank you for the intelligence,” said Laurent.

Halvik shrugged. “You can owe me a favor.”

“I might have little to pay it back with,” said Laurent.

Halvik did look as though this concerned her. “You are resourceful,” she said, and then she left, gesturing her attendants to follow.

Damen adjusted the positioning of the snow pack he held against Laurent’s skull. Laurent closed his eyes and felt that he could still see the dancing edges of the flames in the corners of his vision even when his eyes were closed.


	10. Chapter 10

They stayed with Halvik for two additional days while Laurent mostly slept, eating ravenously when he awoke before falling into slumber once again, as though he could concentrate the time needed to recover from the injury by doing nothing else.

Damen did not speak Vaskian but fit well into the camp regardless, assisting with the chores and tending to Laurent as though he had been raised a body servant or a Vaskian rider and not a prince trained in duplicity and too foolish enough to even see his own ignorance. The Vaskian women continued to flirt with Damen, letting their hands linger when they handed him something, or bending over in front of him to offer a view of their breasts, and Damen returned their overtures with friendliness but no indications of interest. He was too foolish even to observe what they were doing, Laurent told himself.

On the second evening there was a feast to celebrate a successful hunt, and Halvik invited Laurent to recline on the fur-covered wooden dais that was constructed for her near the fire. “Bring your man,” she told Laurent. Laurent reluctantly waved Damen up to sit beside him, and Damen followed the instruction, seemingly oblivious both to the honor that Halvik was granting him to be seated there, as well as to Laurent’s reluctance about it.

“I seek your advice,” said Halvik, once the drumming had begun.

“I am sure you could have no need of advice from me,” said Laurent. It was the kind of response that was expected in Vere, but Halvik gave no reaction.

Halvik produced a question about leadership that sounded like a riddle without an answer, one of the impossible dilemmas presented to those who are responsible for others. She spoke of three of her subjects, and a child, and the question.

“It is truly a challenging question,” said Laurent, having learned sufficient diplomacy in the Veretian court to know that other rulers did not always appreciate advice even when requested. Flattery was generally better received. “I am certain you will handle it with wisdom.”

Halvik turned a stony-eyed look on Laurent, and then flicked her eyes to Damen. “Ask him,” she told Laurent.

Laurent was tempted to object, but Halvik’s eyes were on him again. He dutifully repeated the scenario and the question to Damen in Veretian. Halvik, who understood more Veretian than she cared to speak, nodded approvingly. Damen listened attentively. 

Laurent waited for Damen’s answer. He was familiar with the Akielon approach to problems, and wondered which form of violence Damen would suggest for this particular situation.

It seemed that Damen also had learned something of diplomacy and statesmanship. For he listened carefully to the problem, asked two questions to understand it further, contemplated thoughtfully for a moment, and then replied to Halvik. When he spoke to Halvik he looked directly at her, even though Laurent would translate for him, and his suggestion was tactfully framed and had a straightforward wisdom to it.

Laurent was furious, suddenly, that on top of all of his other offenses, Damianos had the gall to offer good advice. He rose, barely pausing to nod respectfully at Halvik as he left the dais, and retreated into the evening.

He walked away from the main fire and the drummers, in the direction of the latrine pit but staying far enough from that area to avoid the stench. 

There was a moment of feeling illicit -- he should really not wander alone in a camp full of women without a chaperone to protect from accusations of bastardy. But he shrugged the feeling off. There was no one else here to cast stones, and he was so far from anyone in Vere who would care. If he made it back to Arles, accusations of liaising with women without a chaperone were probably the tamest thing his uncle could start rumors of him doing while he had been gone. And if he did not make it back to Arles -- well, there was no point in thinking of that.

He needed allies, and he had precious few. Halvik was good for protection for the immediate future, while his uncle’s threat was limited to hiring raiders in search of him. But Halvik’s protection could not extend beyond the foothills, which was not a position where Laurent particularly desired to live in exile. And his uncle would find him eventually, or Halvik would tire of offering him favors when it seemed clear he would never be in a position to repay them. Damianos also had his uses in physical protection. Laurent had to grudgingly admit that the man had already kept him from being killed at least twice. But one man, however good at swordfighting, was not going to be sufficient to aid him in retaking his position in Arles. 

It made sense now that Damianos had been heading for the border. He was on the same fool’s mission as Laurent himself, one man alone trying to reclaim what was rightfully his. Laurent supposed that he could discount Damianos as conspiring with his uncle as he had theorized back in Arles. If his uncle did have his talons in Damianos, then why had the man saved his life, repeatedly, and guided him away from discovery by his uncle’s men? It was insensible.

But there were few reasons for Laurent himself to continue to head to the border. Most of his potential allies would still be in Arles. There were two who were not. He needed to reach a town, where he could hire a messenger to contact Torveld. Torveld had wavered, in Arles, as to whether he risked his brother’s ire in an effort at personal vengeance against Laurent’s uncle, but it was possible that the blond slave had further won over his sympathies even after he left. Laurent would need to check. Then he wondered if Nikandros’s messenger would wait past the day they had set, even if rumors of Laurent’s death were circulating. That was questionable, but Nikandros could be a valuable ally if the messenger were still in Nesson-Eloy. And that was on the way to the border, so he could probably convince Damen to visit the city with him as protection, since Damen seemed content to take Laurent to Akielos, continue to save his life, and not inform Laurent of his identity. And to fuck him, though Laurent supposed he had played some part in that as well. 

Laurent turned his walking, finally, and traced his steps back toward the camp and the low tent that he and Damen had been sharing. His head hurt. He expected the tent to be empty; Damen probably still on the dais with Halvik enjoying the music or having been coaxed by Halvik’s directions and the hakesh into retiring with some of her girls.

So he was surprised to find Damen standing near their tent, watching him approach in the darkness. “I was just thinking I might need to search for you,” said Damen, as Laurent came into speaking distance. “I worried you might have fallen, or needed help.”

“I am fine,” Laurent said shortly. 

Damen nodded. “Does your head hurt a great deal?” He seemed genuinely solicitous. 

“Yes.” Laurent let that stand as an explanation for his abrupt departure from the feast and his terse responses upon returning.

“I thought we might depart tomorrow,” said Damen, holding up the tent flap and gesturing for Laurent to precede him into the dwelling. He entered behind Laurent and the tent flap fell closed behind him. “If your head is better? But if the pain is too great we could stay.”

“We should depart tomorrow,” said Laurent, settling his head gently on the furs padding the bottom of the tent as he reclined. If he was to have any chance of still finding the messenger he needed to get to Nesson-Eloy as quickly as possible.

Damen nodded; Laurent could barely make out the movement in the darkness. 

It was a small tent for two men, especially when one of them was Damen’s size. He could feel Damen moving in the tent as he undressed for sleeping. Laurent closed his eyes and focused on breathing evenly. He thought again -- I could kill him, right now. The knife was not too far from his hand; he could move close enough to Damen to use it without Damen suspecting anything. But it did not make sense to kill him now, when Damen could yet be useful.

Damen moved a bit closer to Laurent on the furs, having ended up settled in a position where his head was near Laurent’s midsection.

“Do you --” Damen trailed off, but the invitation was clear in his voice.

Laurent thought first, no, for it made him angry to think of how much he had enjoyed sex with Damen when he hadn’t remembered who Damen was.

And then he thought, why not. Why should he not let the king of Akielos pleasure him, bend over him and use his mouth like a slave or a pet. He had had few victories in the last few days, it seemed he was entitled something.

So he said, “Yes,” and placed one of his hands -- the hand that was not itching for the knife -- on Damen’s head, directing his attention where Laurent wished. 

Somehow it was not the moment of victory that Laurent had envisioned. Damen went willingly where Laurent directed him, his caresses were knowing and attuned to the responses of Laurent’s body. He moved eagerly and willingly to take Laurent into his mouth, and he had already learned Laurent’s favorites amongst his tricks. 

Damen applied himself, but Laurent found himself not near to the moment of release, the tension in his body increasing and his arousal not the pleasant excitement it had been in their past encounters. He tugged on Damen’s hair, finally, and Damen pulled off and made an inquisitive noise.

“My head hurts,” said Laurent, another lie, but Damen had been lying to him since the moment they had first met. Since before that, when he had sent Auguste a messenger saying they could have peace and then denied it on the field.

Damen accepted the lie willingly, making only a noise of sympathy, and he settled next to Laurent to sleep instead. Laurent found himself lying awake for a long time before sleep claimed him.


	11. Chapter 11

They departed the next morning. Damen did most of the chores after asking solicitously after Laurent’s head. Laurent said he would see to the horses, and he spent long moments acquainting himself with them, the two mares they’d acquired in their rush out of Brioude. The saddle bag they’d had since the beginning was still with them, and as Laurent packed it he checked to see if his signet ring was still inside. It was, because Damen was so foolish that while he might think to take the ring off of Laurent’s finger he was not clever enough to have thrown it into a pond before Laurent ever woke up.

They were two days from Nesson-Eloy. The trip was made mostly in silence. In the evening of the first day Laurent watched curiously as Damen’s hands fashioned a snare. Damen took several pieces of wood -- sticks that he picked up off of the ground -- some wire, and a lead string, and with the same ease that he controlled his horse or his sword, he formed them into a small trap.

Laurent could see, watching Damen closely, how the trap was to work, the way the bent branch of the small bush was to function as a spring, the way he affixed the sticks to act as a hook until the animal went in to the noose. Laurent had been hunting many times -- it was a favorite pastime of his uncle’s -- but he had hunted in the manner of the nobility, with hawks and dogs and weapons. He had not hunted in this manner before, the manner of one man who is seeking food, and will not return to a tent and a luncheon presented by an army of servants.

Damen glanced up to see Laurent watching him as he worked, and at first he made no remark about Laurent’s gaze. After a moment he began to explain his actions, to describe the types of string that one could use for the lead line, or how to form such a string from grass fibers if string was not convenient. He pointed toward the droppings under the nearby bush, and the signs of a rabbit hole, and told Laurent why he had picked this spot to set the trap, rather than any of the other places they had passed. It reminded Laurent, somehow, of how Auguste used to speak to him, telling him about how to properly care for a horse as he groomed his own before Laurent was old enough to have one of his own. 

“That’s very clever,” Laurent said, once they had the rabbit. He was going to eat the rabbit so it seemed only fair to grudgingly admit that he was impressed by how Damen had caught it.

Damen shrugged, as though it were not significant. “It is a traditional Akielon way of setting a snare.”

“Perhaps Akielons are better at setting traps than they are at freeing themselves of them,” said Laurent, before he could help himself. 

Damen raised his eyes from where he was skinning the rabbit.

Laurent thought for a moment that he had gone too far, and bit his tongue within his mouth when he ought to have held it moments earlier. But then Damen lowered his gaze again to his work. When he spoke again his tone was mild. “Perhaps so.”

 

They reached the fields of Nesson around midday and the town in the afternoon. It was simple enough to lose Damen once they were in the town. Laurent handed Damen the reins to his horse to hold, gestured toward a vendor’s stall selling stoppered bottles of oil with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow and said, “I’m going to--” and he did not even need to say the words, for Damen was already turning red beneath his tan and nodding and turning away.

The vendor looked at Laurent hopefully after this introduction, but Laurent shook his head and wove his way through the crowd of people in the marketplace. He slipped a grey hat into his hand from one of the stalls on the far east side of the market, and pulled it on instead of the brown one he had been wearing. His hair would not be so distinctive, now, shorn unevenly and close to his scalp. But he still had a large scab, and the hair was not long enough to cover it, so a hat was necessary to be inconspicuous.

The inn he sought was called The White Eagle, and there was an eagle on a standard near the door, so that those who couldn’t read the sign could recognize the establishment. Laurent cast his eyes around the street before entering, to ensure that he hadn’t been followed -- either by Damen, once Damen realized Laurent was doing more than stepping away for a moment for a purchase, or by someone else who might be in pursuit of him or Damen or both. 

The innkeeper seemed to expect Laurent to sit for a while in the common room before retiring, and Laurent did not wish to draw attention to himself, so he accepted a tankard that he brought to his lips but did not drink, and sat in a dark spot near the fire and listened to the conversation.

The inn's guests were -- not surprisingly, he supposed -- talking about him. The drama of beloved Prince Laurent’s disappearance and now presumed death merited most of the day’s gossip, and while his reputation seemed generally good amongst these town folk, that didn’t stop them from placing friendly wagers with each other as to whether the prince were still alive, when he might be found, where he might be found, or how long it would take the Regent to declare war on Akielos now that he was dead. 

Laurent learned that there was a pretender -- some man in Ravenel who had emerged claiming to be the missing prince, amidst much doubt and speculation. The Regent was going to Ravenel personally to investigate, which Laurent noted, since that meant his uncle was likely to be closer to Nesson-Eloy than he would have guessed, traveling toward the Akielon border just as Damen was. 

It became evening, and others in the common room were slowly retiring, so Laurent left his still full tankard of ale sitting on the table and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the establishment. The top of the stairs had a view of the door, so he was able to see Damen enter the inn, blinking as as his eyes adjusted to the smoky dimness of the interior. Damen’s eyes scanned the common room, then, seeking. Laurent could guess what Damen was searching for, but Damen was still searching the common room and not looking up, and Laurent ducked away from the stairs and down the hallway to the room he’d rented.

The room was well-appointed. The fire had been tended and kept the room pleasantly warm; Laurent tugged off his hat. The bed was large, and the bedding was clean and without moth holes. There was a chair by the fire, and the messenger was seated in it, though when he recognized Laurent he dropped to his knees on the floor and lowered his gaze. “Your highness,” the messenger said.

“Stand up,” said Laurent. “I did not know if you would still be waiting. Given the rumors.”

The man was older than Laurent, and older than Damen also, though only perhaps by a few years. He was -- Laurent thought, with a strange pang of memory -- probably the same age now as Laurent’s brother Auguste would have been, though there was little in this man to remind one of Auguste. The man had dark skin and hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and was of a similar build to Laurent himself.

“You said you would come,” the man offered simply, and Laurent nodded in recognition of that show of loyalty. The man produced a message from within his jacket, and held the piece of sealed parchment out to Laurent.

Laurent took it, inspected the seal to determine that it was in fact Nikandros’s and that it had not been tampered with, and then opened the parchment to read the message.

The message was dated from only a few days prior, while Laurent and Damen would have been staying with Halvik, so the messenger was in communication with Nikandros. The contents of the message were not surprising.

_I am sorry. Everything is different now._

_-N_

The note was not surprising, but it was frustrating, and Laurent tossed it into the fire with a quick disgusted motion and then rested each of his hands on the mantle over the fireplace and let his head hang for a moment, feeling the rage fill him for a moment and then leave as he watched the crackling of the flames in the hearth.

He could not even fault Nikandros for the decision; it was likely what Laurent himself would have done, in his place. An secret agreement with a prince with his own guard -- a small guard, to be sure, but his own troops and his own following -- was a different question than allying with a man who at this point was sure to be declared a pretender just as the man who had emerged in Ravenel. 

Laurent turned away from the fire. The messenger was still there, standing uncomfortably and darting glances at Laurent’s face and then away as though it were too bold to look Laurent in the eye. Laurent had forgotten what it was like to be around people who were not Damen, who hesitated to look him in the eye or instinctively felt that somehow they weren’t worthy. 

“You can go,” Laurent said. 

The messenger darted a final glance toward Laurent. “You have no return message?”

Laurent shook his head. 

The man left the room, giving a little bow to Laurent on his way out, and then he almost collided with another man making his way down the hall. There was a moment where Laurent could have simply closed the door behind the messenger and perhaps have gotten away with it, but he let curiosity get the best of him and of course Damen was the one blocking the hallway. Damen let the messenger pass with an apology about their collision, and then he edged his way into Laurent’s doorway, far enough that Laurent could not shut him out. 

“You are here,” said Damen, with his usual talent for stating facts that any observer could see were true.

“So are you,” said Laurent, letting his tone have a slight edge, and he could see in Damen’s eyes that Damen understood it was an insult.

Damen wasn’t afraid to hold Laurent’s gaze without interruption, to look down on Laurent and hold his eyes while he inspected them for something that was right in front of him but that Damen was too dense to see.

“What are you doing here?” said Damen, and his eyes flicked away from Laurent for a moment to where the messenger was disappearing down the staircase to the common room. “I did not know where you were.”

Laurent felt his blood rising, again, something of the energy and heat that Damen generated within him, an instinct to fight, to pick at Damen until he shouted or held Laurent up against the wall with his body. It was all curled up within his blood now with the instinct to fuck; he felt the beginnings of arousal as Damen’s eyes returned to where he stood in the doorway. He let his posture turn insouciant and curled a bit against the door frame, his own eyes darting to the staircase and then back to Damen with a small smile. “Are you jealous?” he said.


	12. Chapter 12

Damen took a step closer, and then another, and then he used the pressure of his body to push Laurent back into the room, and he pulled Laurent’s hand from the door frame to let the door fall shut behind them. Laurent let Damen keep hold of his wrist as they listened to the echo of the door fade.

Laurent would have wagered that Damen hadn’t been jealous -- despite how Laurent teased him, he really wasn’t the type -- but Damen did have an obvious weakness for Laurent’s voice. Laurent probably could say anything in that tone, and watch Damen’s eyes become darker in response. 

Laurent tested the theory, letting his tone be sensuous while the words were mundane. “Did you have a good day in the market? Were you able to find a stable for the horses?”

It was working; Laurent could tell it was working even without the telltale flick of Damen’s eyes toward the bed. 

“You’re trying to distract me.” Perhaps he was slightly brighter than Laurent had credited him.

Laurent pulled his wrist out of Damen's grasp and took a step backwards toward the bed. He felt Damen’s eyes follow him. “Is it working?” he said, keeping the same tone.

“Yes,” said Damen, sounding helpless, and Laurent liked that tone in Damen’s voice, and he found himself laughing a little bit. “What were you doing with that man?” Damen said.

“Do you like to picture it?” said Laurent. “What are you picturing that we were doing?”

“You disappeared,” said Damen. “I was worried. What’s going on?”

“Do I get no moments to myself?” said Laurent, changing to the offensive. “Are you my captor?”

Damen flushed, and his eyes slid off of Laurent’s face. That was shame, Laurent supposed, though he wouldn’t have necessarily thought an Akielon would feel it.

“Are you that jealous?” said Laurent. “Shall I tell you about how he went to his knees --”

“No--” Damen interrupted. His eyes were focused somewhere behind Laurent’s shoulder. He brought them back to Laurent’s face. “Just, know that I will help you, if you need it,” he said. “When there are so many after you it would be wiser to have someone watching your back.” His voice and his face both seemed sincere. 

Damen was the first to step away, and he crossed the room to sit in the chair near the fire. It was the same chair the messenger had been waiting in before Laurent had arrived. 

“I thought at first that you had been taken,” said Damen. 

“Who would have taken me?” said Laurent, not looking Damen’s direction with careful casualness.

Damen shrugged. “There seems to be no shortage of men who are trying to kill you.”

“Are you one of them?” Laurent said, turning to face Damen suddenly, so that he could see the man’s reaction. 

Damen’s surprise was written on his face. “No,” he said, and it seemed as sincere as his offer of assistance a moment before. 

“But you are not telling me everything,” said Laurent. 

Damen glanced around the room they were staying in, then back at Laurent. “Neither are you,” he said. Laurent shifted his weight and one of the floorboards creaked. The fire popped in the hearth and the silence grew.

“I had an idea,” said Laurent, making the statement an offering. “It didn’t work.”

Damen nodded slowly, and then he unwrapped a bundle from the bag he was carrying. “Have you eaten?” The crusted bread and cheese was a second peace offering, and Laurent accepted it. They ate without speaking.

After he was finished, Damen brushed crumbs of bread off of his lap and dusted his hands off over the fire. He looked toward the bed. 

“You can sleep on the floor," said Laurent.

Damen half-smiled, the left side of his mouth crooking up, but he made no objection to the arrangement, and Laurent deigned to throw him down one of the blankets.

 

In the morning, Damen produced more bread and cheese for breakfast. It was harder than it had been the night before, but Laurent was hungrier.

Damen had housed their horses in the stable near the inn. Something in Laurent felt better as he mounted, clearer headed. “Toward Ravenel?” he said. 

Damen squinted at the roads leaving Nesson. “Arran? We might not want to go within range of Ravenel’s patrols.”

Laurent shrugged. After Nikandros’s message he cared little about their immediate destination; he was tempted to care little about their ultimate destination as well. He had no rendezvous to make, no allies to meet. It made little difference to him which portion of the border Damen intended to cross over.

Laurent’s mind was teased with daydreams as they rode. He thought first upon whom he might be able to approach as an ally if he returned to Arles, and then he thought of what he might say to his uncle if he revealed himself at the perfect moment -- during a coronation anniversary, perhaps. He was so engrossed in revising his remarks in his head that he missed Damen’s whistle, and then Damen reached out and took the reins to pull in Laurent’s horse beside him. 

“Quiet,” Damen said under his breath. “There are riders over the ridge.”

They left the horses far enough back to remain out of sight, and then approached the top of the ridge, cautiously crawling through the tall grass on their bellies so as not to be spotted.

There were not just riders, but a company. Laurent saw the standards, and for a moment, he thought, helplessly -- “Father” -- before he realized. The standards were not those of the Veretian Regent, or the starburst blazon of the Crown Prince, but those of the King. 

“So it’s official,” said Laurent.

Damen nodded beside him, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand and counting the riders below under his breath. He spoke to himself in Akielon, but Laurent could understand the numbers. _Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…_

The thought struck Laurent suddenly that he had slept with two different men, and each of them were kings now. Well, sort of, if Damen counted as a king when he was currently in possession of effectively the grass under his abdomen and not much else. There was something humorous to the thought, though, especially given how often Laurent had been teased, flirtatiously, by those seeking his attention and his favors, and said to be too selective. If only they had known. 

The Regent was not an imposing figure on a horse, not like Damen was when he sat to attention, but Laurent could pick his uncle out amongst the others by the finery of his clothing. The Regent was talking to the captain of his guards. The guard was gesturing repeatedly toward the Akielon border; presumably that was the subject of their discussion. 

Laurent wondered what would happen if he ran over the ridge shouting. He knew his uncle’s guards were not his allies. But they would recognize him from the palace. They couldn’t dismiss him as they could some pretender in Ravenel. Would his uncle order them to kill him on the spot? Would the men be able to bring themselves to do that? Would they keep quiet about it if they did? It seemed more likely that they would at least have to pretend to welcome him back. Laurent could blame Damen for the entire escapade; they would drag Damen along with them. It was, after all, Damen’s fault in the first place.

Laurent doubted he’d make it any further than Ravenel before the miraculously located missing prince encountered some sort of tragic fatal accident. Damen’s lifespan wasn’t much longer than his own. The whole company might be sacrificed, depending on what story his uncle wanted to spread after it was over.

Down the ridge, Laurent’s uncle looked down for a moment as he considered something, asked a question they couldn’t hear from the height of the ridge, and then seemingly made a decision, and the company departed. They headed in the opposite direction of the ridge where Laurent and Damen were hiding. Both of them remained at their position in the grass as they watched the company change directions and gain distance.

Damen kept his eyes focused on the company when he spoke. His voice had something tentative in it. “Have you remembered more about that man?”

Laurent took in a breath and let it out. “Still jealous, I see,” he said, keeping his tone light.

Damen made a frustrated noise. 

“He’s behind the attack,” said Laurent.

“Which one?” said Damen.

“Both of them,” said Laurent. 

There was a period of silence between them. The Regent’s company kept a steady pace, until the banners were a swath of color against the sky but too far off to make out the emblem. 

“Yes,” Damen said eventually, and Laurent had to pull his thoughts back to their conversation to realize that Damen was agreeing that his uncle was responsible for the attacks.

Laurent measured the distance between the company and his current position on the ridge. He could still take his chances with his uncle, if he ran for his horse and raced toward the company. He was tempted for a moment, weighing the odds, and then he let the impulse go.

He couldn’t have said why he let it slip through his fingers. It wasn’t that he had a better strategy for reclaiming his position. Pitting himself against his uncle might be the most likely way to ever see Arles again; it was probably wiser than following Damianos to Akielos. He knew that, and yet he didn’t act. An invisible force held his hand, as it had held his hand when he had first remembered who he was and contemplated killing Damen and yet not thrown the knife.

Damen rose to his feet beside Laurent. Laurent rolled on to his side and looked up at Damen. Damen reached down to offer him a hand up. 

Laurent looked at his hand for a moment, the callused fingers stretched out toward him, and then he raised his own hand and let Damen pull him up to standing beside him. Their hands remained clasped for a moment. 

“We can probably keep moving,” said Damen. “If we stay west, on the top of the ridge.”

Laurent nodded, and they continued.


	13. Chapter 13

They made good progress despite the delay of avoiding the Regent and Laurent’s lack of interest in how much progress they made at all. Damen kept them riding in the correct direction, purchased lunch from a friendly farmer as they passed, and decided where they would make camp in the late afternoon.

Laurent’s thoughts were elsewhere, some in Arles still thinking about who he could turn into an ally. Some were several leagues distant with his uncle’s company. 

When they stopped, they fell into the chores each of them had become accustomed to taking, Damen responsible for the food and Laurent taking care of the horses. Laurent set aside and checked the saddles for wear, and then brushed each of the horses slowly, looking carefully for any saddle or girth sores, and pleased that the horses were well. He looked at each of their hooves in turn, checking with a pick for any small stones they might have picked up, and that the shoes were in good condition. 

When he approached the small fire that Damen had built up, Damen offered to do the same for him. “Let me see your head.”

Laurent tried to be as patient as the horses had been, and he pulled off the woolen cap he wore most of the time and settled on one of the stumps near the fire. Damen stood next to him and checked Laurent’s head. Damen’s hands on his skin moved with a comfortable grace, cupping around the curve of Laurent’s neck to to tilt his head to one side or another to improve his view. There was familiarity in his grasp.

“And so?” Laurent said. One of Damen’s hands had carded through his shorn hair.

“It is healing well,” said Damen. “Both of the wounds are healing well. There is no pus or signs of swelling.”

One of Damen’s hands moved from his head to rest on the back of Laurent’s neck. It should have felt threatening, Laurent told himself, and instead it was oddly comfortable. He said nothing.

“You are tense,” Damen observed. “And your shoulder has been bothering you.”

Laurent rolled his shoulder, wincing slightly. It was the site of an old injury and he tended to feel it when he was tired and sore. 

“It’s fine,” said Laurent. Damen was standing behind where Laurent was seated on the stump.

“Let me--” said Damen, and he moved his hands to rest on Laurent’s shoulders. Damen felt along the blades of Laurent’s shoulders for the tendons, applying gentle pressure with his fingers. His hands were strong. Laurent tensed his shoulders together for a moment, surprised, and then made a conscious effort to relax them, and Damen continued his massage along the tops of the shoulders, Laurent’s upper arms, and the lower portion of his neck.

“This would go easier,” said Damen, “if you removed your shirt.”

Laurent opened his mouth to say, “No,” and then Damen’s fingers released tension in his shoulder that had been paining him for days, and he groaned instead. He could almost feel Damen smirking behind him, but he didn’t look, and began to unlace the front of his shirt. 

When it was loose, Damen lifted his arms for a moment so Laurent could pull the shirt up over his head, and his shoulders felt almost cold for a moment, missing the warmth and pressure of Damen’s hands while the linen pulled over his face. But then Laurent had the shirt bunched in his hands in his lap, and Damen’s hands felt even warmer directly on his skin, and the massage continued. 

Damen used his thumbs to massage the tension around the back of Laurent’s neck, and then he applied gentle pressure to the shoulder blade on first the left side, and then the right in turn. He cupped the top of Laurent’s shoulders in each of his hands and moved from the neck outward with gentle kneading, and then he pushed forward on Laurent’s upper back to encourage him to lean further over, and continued rubbing along the edges of Laurent’s spine.

Laurent thought that the massage would be over when Damen finished with his exposed back and shoulders, but Damen moved up again to his head, and moved his fingers gently around the portions of his scalp that were not part of the giant scab covering his wound, and then moved down the sides of Laurent’s face, rubbing Laurent’s temples and then the portion of his face where he carried tension in his lower jaw. Damen touched him in ways that Laurent had never been touched before. He would not have even thought to ever have someone else touch his face in that manner, or to believe he would feel comfortable with someone else’s hands resting so familiarly on his neck. It unsettled him in a way that could not be massaged away like the physical stress of his body.

Damen then seated himself behind Laurent on the stump, and the log shifted slightly under their combined weight, and their hips had slotted close together to balance on the wood. Laurent could feel Damen’s tunic against his back, the width of Damen’s chest and the texture of the wool fabric warmed by Damen’s skin. Damen’s breath fell upon his shoulder. 

Laurent thought he understood, then, because he had been waiting for Damen to turn this to sex, to take advantage of how pliable and warm the massage had left him feeling. But Damen simply reached for one of Laurent’s hands, and continued his massage on Laurent’s palm and wrist and forearm. Laurent’s fingers had still been clasped in his shirt and now the linen fell to the ground near his feet.

Damen traced the musculature of his arms up to his shoulders again and then back to the fingers, as though he were tipping water along a leaf and watching the pattern it made as the drops ran from one side of the leaf to the other.

When Laurent spoke, his voice sounded thicker than he would have liked. “What is it that you want?”

Damen hummed in response, and Laurent could feel the sound in Damen’s chest against his back as well as hearing it. “What do you mean?” Damen switched his massage to Laurent’s left hand.

“Why are you doing this?” said Laurent, because the massage seemed to have loosened his tongue along with his other muscles.

“Do you not like it?” said Damen. “You seem to be enjoying it.”

Laurent wanted again to say no, to claim that he was not enjoying it, or to deflect the question, or to change the subject. Something. He could feel Damen’s work being undone somewhat by the tension that was settling again in his shoulders, the tautness that he held there for as long as he could remember returning even after Damen had banished it for a moment. 

He twisted, turning his upper body as much as he could while bracketed by Damen’s larger frame, trying to look at Damen. Damen leaned back slightly so that their eyes could meet. He appeared slightly quizzical, a small line creased in between his brows.

Laurent blinked. He thought he was going to say something, but he was uncertain what he wished to say, and the feeling of being uncertain about his words was unfamiliar to him. He opened his mouth to speak, still not knowing what words he sought, and then he abandoned words altogether and fit his mouth to Damen’s. 

Damen returned the kiss with enthusiasm. Laurent had been thinking of sex while Damen had been touching him, and yet he felt as though their kiss skipped over all of the moments of flirtation and anticipation. Damen had opened his mouth to Laurent as though they were already familiar, as though they were intimate, like he might have done while they were fucking.

Laurent felt dizzy. The position was uncomfortable, seated front to back, but they managed to squirm around in place, turning Laurent to face Damen, settling himself more securely in Damen’s lap, all while their faces remained close enough to feel each other’s breath. Damen hadn’t shaved in several days, and Laurent could feel the rasp of it on the skin around his mouth; he felt flushed and bruised and somehow vulnerable. 

He bit Damen’s lip, none too gently, as he tried to take back their encounter, to turn it back into something that he understood. It was too much the abandoned pleasure he recalled from before, but that was a pleasure that could only come with the cost of not knowing who he was. He couldn’t have that and be the Crown Prince of Vere. The price was too dear. Damen’s hands tightened where they had settled on Laurent’s hips in response to his bite, and then Damen nipped his own way along Laurent’s jaw in retaliation.

Laurent had decided when he remembered who Damen was that he was done with letting Damen fuck him; Laurent was only a few breaths from begging Damen to fuck him again. He had to do something, and he had one more card to play. He had been holding it back, because he had thought this moment might come, but he had one more option that would deter Damen as surely as if he poured a bucket of snow from the Vaskian slopes over Damen’s head. Akielons were obsessed with status and hierarchy, Laurent knew their notions extended even to the bedroom.

“Yes,” said Laurent, not bothering to hide the heat in his voice, and it sounded deep even to his own ears. “I want to take you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been encouraging me as I've been writing! I really appreciate it.


	14. Chapter 14

Damen leaned in to take Laurent’s mouth again, penetrating Laurent’s mouth with his tongue in the manner that Laurent had suggested taking Damen’s body, and Laurent let Damen try to distract him for a moment in this fashion, confident in his ability to adhere to his plan. 

And then Damen pulled back from the kiss, and Damen was talking and Laurent thought, _yes, the denial--_

“I would like that,” said Damen. Damen leaned in to kiss Laurent again before Laurent could comprehend what Damen had said or compose a reply.

Damen moved from Laurent’s lips to ghosting kisses over the rest of his face, one cheek to another, brushing his lips along Laurent’s forehead, as though his mouth were just another way to learn Laurent’s features. 

“I want to fuck you,” Laurent said, to be clear. He remembered Damen’s revulsion at the idea of Govart taking him in the ring. He knew the way that Damen’s eyes lingered on Laurent himself. He could feel the interest of Damen’s gaze. He had known it from the first encounter he arranged in the baths at Arles, and he had recognized it even when he hadn’t remembered who he was. Damen wanted to bend him over; Laurent was not wrong about that. “I want to spill inside you,” he continued, so his meaning was explicit. 

Damen shuddered in response; Laurent was seated on his lap and could feel it throughout his body. Damen’s hands were tight along his hips, helping Laurent to stay balanced in his position.

“Yes,” said Damen, and fortunately he missed Laurent’s dumbfounded expression because he let go of Laurent’s waist briefly to pull his own shirt up over his head. “I haven’t,” said Damen with that strange Akielon delicacy, “in a long time.” 

Laurent was still waiting for Damen to take it back. He thought Damen would change his mind when Damen eased Laurent off of his lap and stood up, but Damen only finished undressing himself, pulling off his own boots, undoing his belt, removing his trousers.

Laurent watched him, standing in front of the fire with his own hands at his sides, and when Damen was nude, he raised an eyebrow at Laurent and then turned his attention to Laurent’s clothing. Laurent’s shirt was already on the ground near their feet, but Damen eased off Laurent’s boots, Laurent raising one foot after another, and then he undid Laurent’s belt and pushed his pants down over his hips. 

Once they were both naked Laurent expected Damen to take it back when Damen searched the saddle bag for their phial of oil. And then when Damen extended the phial to Laurent with a questioning look, as though to say, _You or me?_

Laurent felt four steps behind. He shook his head at Damen, but then when Damen reclined and began to prepare himself, Laurent felt drawn close to watch, and fell to his knees next to where Damen had settled. He reached for Damen’s hand holding the phial, and Damen relinquished it to him easily, and then Laurent trailed his other hand along Damen’s other arm to feel where Damen was massaging the entrance to his own body. His eyes met Laurent’s as he did this, as though he felt no more shame at this moment than he had when he’d rubbed Laurent’s temples earlier in the evening. Why was it that Damen blushed when Laurent put to words what men did together, and yet Damen could meet his eyes without reservation at this moment?

Laurent slid his finger next to Damen’s own, and Damen inhaled sharply. “That’s good,” Damen encouraged. Laurent could almost not believe that this was happening. He wanted to look at where he was touching Damen’s body but he couldn’t draw his gaze away from Damen’s dark eyes.

Damen brushed his hand away after a moment, and Laurent thought again -- _now he will take it back_ \-- so he was completely unprepared for Damen to turn over and arrange himself on his hands and knees. Damen looked over his left shoulder at Laurent with a warm smile. Laurent felt rooted to the ground. 

“Are you ready?” said Damen. 

Laurent looked at him, at the posture of Damen’s body as he waited, at the lines of the musculature in his shoulders and his thighs. Damen’s back was broad in front of him, crossed with red scars where Laurent had had him whipped. Laurent did not think he could fuck Damen while staring at the scars. He was starting to wonder if he could fuck Damen at all. 

“Turn over,” said Laurent, his eyes still fixed on Damen’s back.

Damen shifted his weight and rolled on to his side to better look at Laurent. “I’m not really flexible enough -- oh,” said Damen, as though he had had an idea, and then he pushed Laurent down to the ground where Damen himself had been lying, Laurent’s back resting on the pile of tangled clothing that had been warmed by Damen’s skin. Damen took the phial from Laurent’s hand, and Laurent thought -- _yes, I knew it, he has changed his mind_ \-- and so it was a surprise when Damen crouched over Laurent on his knees, when Damen took his oil-coated hand and rubbed it on Laurent himself, and then when Damen used his hand to position himself and sank down on Laurent slowly.

Laurent’s eyes were wide open. He couldn't control the sound that he made as Damen guided him into Damen’s body. 

Damen made an echoing noise of satisfaction. His expression was smug as he looked down at Laurent. Laurent did not know what to do with his hands; he rested them on the top of Damen’s thighs. Damen’s enjoyment was obvious. His arousal was apparent in front of Laurent, his face showed his pleasure nakedly. And he knew who he was, and who Laurent was, he knew that this was not something that either of them could have for more than a few stolen days together amidst what was going to probably result in a bloody series of coups and wars that most likely ended with both of them being dead. Yet there was sincere and innocent pleasure on his face as he rode Laurent. 

Laurent wanted to say something, he wanted to make a joke about Damen enjoying being on top so much that he couldn’t resist this position, but it was finally coming to him now that Damen would probably just smile and roll them over and Laurent would know even less what to make of that. 

Damen took one of Laurent’s hands from his thigh to Damen’s arousal, wrapping Laurent’s with his own and guiding him in a steady stroke, and Laurent felt so taken that he was not even sure he could have kept the rhythm without Damen’s hand. He watched Damen tip his head back in pleasure and then he came with the vision of Damen’s pleased expression and exposed throat in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought perhaps that this chapter would have plot in it...but no it is mostly just porn. :) Enjoy. I will aim for some plot in the next chapter.


	15. Chapter 15

Laurent fell in to a restless and dream-filled sleep.

He dreamed first of when he had been small and had crawled in bed next to Auguste after he had had a nightmare. Auguste’s bed was covered with an embroidered tapestry canopy, and Laurent had to push it to the side to crawl up and settle next to his brother on the pillows. Laurent pressed his face warmly against Auguste’s shoulder only to startle awake slightly in the darkness and realize it was Damen he was pressed against. He was far from Auguste’s room in Arles, settled near the fire Damen had banked in their camp just out of sight of Ravenel.

Only partially wakened, Laurent drifted next into a dream where he was chasing Auguste through the corridors of the palace at Arles. Laurent called after his brother and ran across the marble tiles, trailing his hand along the pillars or the wall for balance as he skidded. Auguste was always turning the corner just ahead of him, no matter how quickly Laurent tried to run or how many times he shouted Auguste’s name after him. Laurent was left with only the echo of his own voice and the sound of his feet falling on the stone floor. 

Laurent caught up to Auguste finally in the family solar. Auguste was staring into the fireplace. Laurent reached for Auguste’s hand and held it close to his breast.

“Brother, I did it,” said Laurent.

Auguste smiled at him distractedly, the same sort of smile he had bestowed when Laurent had trailed after him when Auguste and his friends were young men and Laurent had still been a boy. “Did what, Laurent?” Auguste looked the same age he had been when Laurent had last seen him, only slightly older than Laurent was himself now. His eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled at Laurent, and Laurent could see the golden color of his eyelashes.

“I killed him,” said Laurent. “The treacherous Akielon who killed you. I killed him, so that you would be avenged.”

Laurent was expecting another distracted smile, but Auguste turned to him fully. “Oh, Laurent, no,” he said, his face lined in concern. Auguste freed his hand from Laurent’s grasp and rested it on Laurent’s shoulder instead. Auguste had always been taller than him.

“But he killed you,” said Laurent, looking up at Auguste. “I promised I would defeat him.”

Auguste shook his head and his curls tumbled slightly; he looked sad. “That was never what I wanted,” said Auguste. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“But--” Laurent objected. “I promised--”

He wasn’t standing in front of Auguste any longer; it was Damen next to the fire in the family solar at Arles now, Damen’s hands resting on his shoulders. 

“Laurent,” said Damen. 

“I said I would kill you,” said Laurent. “It’s what he wanted.”

“Laurent, wake up,” said Damen. 

“Auguste,” Laurent called out, and his voice sounded plaintive to his own ears.

“You’re dreaming. Wake up,” said Damen, and Laurent drifted half awake between the sense that he was still standing in his family solar at Arles where his brother had been just a moment before, and the sense of the campsite where he had fallen asleep with Damen. He could hear the sound of morning birds and sense the dim light of the dawn behind his eyelids. He could feel Damen’s hands resting on his shoulders, his head was buried in Damen’s neck, he was breathing heavily against Damen’s skin.

Damen shook him slightly. “It is only a dream,” said Damen.

“I’m awake,” said Laurent quietly, though there was something of the disquiet of the dream still in his voice.

He could feel Damen nod more than see it. 

“Did you remember something?” said Damen, after a moment.

Laurent closed his eyes again, and reached for the memory of his brother, the warmth on his face as he’d smiled at Laurent. All he could hear was the echo of Auguste saying, “Laurent, no.”

“It was only a dream,” said Laurent, and he pretended to fall back into slumber until he did actually sleep again, without dreams this time.

When he woke a third time, it was past the dawn, and Damen had already risen. Laurent rolled over and he could see Damen doing some form of calisthenics on a flat area near the campsite. He watched Damen move from his position on their discarded clothing for long moments before he sat up, blinking.

Damen observed that he was awake after a few minutes and wandered back over toward where Laurent was.

“Morning,” said Damen. 

Laurent nodded at him, then stared off toward where Damen had been exercising. “Is that some kind of Akielon mating dance?” said Laurent, but there was only a hint of the usual malice he felt for Akielon habits in his voice.

Damen grinned at him in reply, falling to the ground near to Laurent’s position easily. “Is it working?” 

Laurent was so surprised by this response he laughed before he could help himself. “It might be,” he said.

Damen smiled at him again, toying with a longer piece of grass in his fingers.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Damen. 

Laurent turned his head in Damen’s direction.

Damen opened his mouth, and whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of a battle horn. Each of them turned to listen to the call. 

Damen recognized it. “Makedon,” he said, naming one of the Akielon generals responsible for the border territories.

“I didn’t realize he was this close to the border,” said Laurent. 

“I saw his banners when I set a snare this morning,” said Damen. “That’s part of what I had to tell you.”

“Part of it?” said Laurent, settling his gaze on Damen once again. 

Damen met his eyes. “I have to go to Akielos because I have responsibilities there,” he said. “I was taken away from my family and my duties unexpectedly and I need to return to set things straight even if I am not expected.”

Laurent waited.

“You have similar duties in Vere, though,” said Damen. “You might not wish to go to Akielos.”

“This is your plan,” said Laurent, unable to keep some of the disbelief from his voice. “You drag me halfway across the country when I have a head injury, and now you’re just going to abandon me with no status in the border region with an army just over the hill? I would have been better off taking my chances with my uncle yesterday.”

“What?” said Damen, sitting up from his reclined position. 

“Take me to Akielos,” said Laurent. “You need my help. Do you even have any type of plan for what you are going to do about Kastor? Have you been in touch with Torveld?”

“You know,” said Damen.

“Of course I know,” said Laurent, turning his head to listen to the call of Makedon’s horn again. The army was very close.

Laurent turned slightly only to realize that Damen himself was also very close, having scooted next to Laurent’s position in the wreck of their clothing from the night before. 

“You are so foolish,” said Laurent, and it came out affectionate rather than derogatory, and Damen was smiling as he leaned in to kiss Laurent.

“I’m really not surprised that you ended up as a slave in Vere,” said Laurent, “given the overall quality of your plans.”

Damen kissed him again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I managed to escape you, that was a pretty good plan.”

Laurent made a derisive noise, and let that comment be when Damen kissed him again. “You need me,” he said. He could feel the smile in Damen’s expression against his cheek, and Damen spoke into his ear. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who read and commented as I wrote! Your feedback is so encouraging and I really appreciate it.


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